1. Field of the Invention
This present invention relates to a miniature flat flashlight. More particularly to a plastic card light which illuminates with one or more light-emitting diodes, powered by a single or multiple battery power supply with a slide switch.
2. Related Art
Card lights known in the art employ a variety of mechanisms to achieve pressure actuated momentary xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d switching (see generally, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,070,990, and 6,109,762). One card-like light described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,893,631 issued to Padden moves a single battery, relative to a lead wire of a light bulb or LED, to form a switch. The battery and light bulb remain within the casing and the switch is momentary in its function.
Absent in the art is a card light with an outer casing and sliding inner body forming a slideable xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d switch.
The invention herein is a flat card light. Certain terminology will be used in the following specification, for convenience and reference and not as a limitation, brief definitions are provided below:
A. xe2x80x9cButton battery xe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cbutton batteriesxe2x80x9d as used herein refer to one or more coin-type battery including but not limited to batteries containing lithium, and with a thickness of between about 0.25 and about 3.0 millimeters and a diameter of between about 10 and about 40 millimeters.
B. xe2x80x9cLEDxe2x80x9d as used herein refers to a light emitting diodes, circular, oval, square, flat, rectangular and flat. LED also includes, but is not limited to, those light emitting diodes which produce a constant output or a blinking output, in a narrow wavelength associated with a specific spectral region, (visible or non-visible) such as red light, blue light, or yellow light, IR, UV and those which produce a wide spectrum output comprising more than one distinct spectral region of light.
C. xe2x80x9cRepresentational materialxe2x80x9d as used herein refers to information, picture, graphics, codes, glyphs, icons, trademarks, logos, visual patterns, art, photographs, digital images, promotional literature, symbols or characters.
In some embodiments the card light is no thicker than the LED (FIG. 1B). The card light may have the battery supply permanently or replaceably fixed within the inner body which nests, movably, within the outer casing (FIG. 1A). In one embodiment each of the two LED lead wires rest beneath a stack of one or more batteries, one lead wire against a positive battery terminal and one lead wire against a negative battery terminal. A switching contact attached to, or formed as part of, the outer casing switchably links the two stacks of batteries (FIG. 1D), thereby supplying current to the LED.
In other embodiments, (FIG. 2E and 3A) a single battery stack is provided and the switching contact connects one of battery""s terminals to a lead wire. On any of the embodiments Promotional material may be, affixed to, or stenciled on the outer casing (FIGS. 1A and 1D) or the inner body (FIG. 2C).
In other embodiments a tabbed LED (FIG. 2A and 3A) is fitted into place within the inner body, allowing for easy assembly.